Dinoire's dog "chewed her face after she passed out from an overdose of sleeping pills."[2] Some reports following the initial surgery claim that her daughter said that the black Labrador cross (named Tania) was "frantically" trying to wake Dinoire after she took sleeping pills in a suicide attempt, and Dinoire wrote about her suicidal feelings in her own memoir.[3] The hospital denied this.[citation needed] In a statement made on 6 February 2006, Dinoire said that "after a very upsetting week, with many personal problems, I took some pills to forget ... I fainted and fell on the ground, hitting a piece of furniture."[4]

Dinoire's daughter reported that the family is sure that the dog, which was euthanized, mutilated Dinoire by accident.[5] They believe that the damage was caused when the dog, finding Dinoire wouldn't wake up, got more and more frantic, and began scratching and clawing her.[5][6] Dinoire was "heartbroken" when Tania was euthanized and kept a picture of the Labrador by her hospital bed;[7] she later bought another dog to aid in her recovery after surgery.[5]

Dinoire's injuries affected her nose, lips, chin, and cheeks.[2] She wore a surgical mask to cover the injuries on the lower part of her face, as the upper face was not affected.[5]

Doctors and the media debated whether the donor and/or the recipient had attempted suicide, with reports stating that the donor had hanged herself.[7] The family of the donor told the funeral director who handled the donor's death that the donor had an accidental death. Local French newspapers stated that Dinoire's daughter said that the mother attempted to commit suicide. Dubernard said that the recipient did not try to kill herself. Olivier Jardé, an orthopedic surgeon from Amiens and a member of the French National Assembly, said that both the donor and the recipient attempted suicide.[8]The Sunday Times, a British newspaper, stated that Dinoire said via a telephone interview that she tried to commit suicide.[8] In her 2007 memoir, Dinoire stated that the donor had killed herself, which "gave Dinoire a feeling of sisterhood" with the donor.[3]

The first partial face transplant surgery on a living human was performed on Dinoire on 27 November 2005 by Professor Bernard Devauchelle, assisted by Professor Jean-Michel Dubernard at the Centre hospitalier Universitaire Nord in Amiens, France. A triangle of face tissue, including the nose and mouth, was taken from a brain-dead female donor and grafted onto the patient.[9][10] "Scientists elsewhere have performed scalp and ear transplants. However, the claim is the first for a mouth and nose transplant. Experts say the mouth and nose are the most difficult parts of the face to transplant."[11] Dinoire was also given bone marrow cells to prevent rejection of the tissue.[12] Exactly one year following the partial face transplant, Dinoire stated she had the ability to smile again. On 28 November 2006, Dinoire's surgeon, Bernard Devauchelle, said that over the past year Dinoire’s scars had become far less prominent.[13]

There has been a change in her appearance. Her original face had a wide, tilted nose, a prominent chin and thin lips. The donated face has given her a straight and narrow nose, a smaller chin and a fuller mouth. In 2008, Dinoire admitted in an interview that she sometimes struggles to accept the appearance of her transplanted face, as she had expected it to look more like her own, saying: "It takes an awful lot of time to get used to someone else's face." In the same interview, she reported that full sensitivity had returned to her face.[14]

The Associated Press released a picture of Dinoire on 28 November 2006, one year after the operation. The French newspaper Le Monde's website explained on 2 December 2006 that the Associated Press had eliminated the picture, because "The hair of Isabelle Dinoire and the background of this image were manipulated by the source."

For the two-year anniversary, her doctors published an article in the New England Journal of Medicine detailing her operation and recovery. Complications have included kidney failure and two episodes of tissue rejection (one after one month and one after one year),[2] which have been suppressed by drugs.[citation needed] Dinoire will have to take the drugs for the rest of her life. A Boston doctor said if she stopped taking drugs, her scenario would be a "disaster", with the new face sloughing off over time.[15] Part of her pre-operative screening included psychological evaluations to ensure she would be capable of maintaining her treatment regimen and also could accept and withstand the effects of having a dead person's face grafted onto her own.[8]